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Friday, December 17, 2010

Today, the Nippon Academy-shō Association for Excellence in Japanese Film announced 34th Japan Academy Prize nominees at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Each of the five nominees in each category is in fact prize-winner and receives an award of "excellence." Winners of the "best" awards in each category will be revealed at a ceremony on February 18. Sang-il Lee’s Akunin (Villain) received the most awards, with 15 awards in 13 categories.

Two films tied with 11 awards - Tetsuya Nakashima's Kokuhaku (Confessions) and Yoji Yamada'a Otôto (Younger Brother). Nakashima's Kokuhaku is Japan’s submission to AMPAS for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Next with nine nominations was Takashi Miike's samurai film Jûsan-nin no Shikaku (13 Assassins) followed by Izuru Narushima's Kokô no Mesu (A Lone Scalpel) which received five. Each of these five films was nominated for both Picture of the Year and Director of the Year.

All films that had their Japanese premiere between December 5, 2009 and November 27, 2010 were eligible for an award. This made for a small field this year as 198 Japanese (9 less than the year before) and 207 foreign films (32 less than before) met the eligibility requirement. The 34thJapan Academy Prize ceremony will take place on Friday, February 18, 2011atNew Takanawa Prince Hotel.
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Special Award from the Chairman
Umetsugu Inoue (director, died February 11 at the age of 86)
Tanie Kitabayashi (actress, died April 27 at the age of 98)
Takeo Kimura (art director, died March 21 at the age of 91)
Keiju Kobayashi (actor, died September 16 at the age of 86)
Katsumi Nishikawa (director, died April 6 at the age of 91)